Anna Larpent (néePorter) (4 April 1758 – 4 March 1832) was a British diarist. She was the de facto assistant Examiner of Plays, primarily reviewing the plays that were written in the Italian language. Her seventeen-volume diaries document 47 years of life in the Georgian era, covering the period from 1773 to 1830.
Her father was the son of a Captain of Horse named La Roche who had adopted the name of Porter. Her maternal grandparents were Anna Margaretha Boelema and Elbert de Hochepied, 2nd Baron de Hochepied, the Dutch Ambassador to Constantinople).[2]
Anna started her diary in 1773 and continued it in seventeen volumes over fifty-seven years to 1830.[3]
Her husband, John Larpent, was the Inspector of Plays serving as the single approver of plays that were to be performed in Britain. Following their marriage, Anna was the de facto assistant to him. When the plays were written in French or Italian then she had the skills to be comprehend them.[1] She was fluent in Italian, where her husband had little knowledge. So she reviewed the plays that were written in Italian.[3] Larpent was interested in her work and she was a fan of Elizabeth Inchbald.[1]
Marriage and children
On 25 April 1782 she married John Larpent, a widower who she hoped would care for her and younger sister Clara who she had adopted. From his first marriage, he was a father of Francis Seymour Larpent, who later served as Judge-Advocate General of the British Army. Together, they were the parents of two sons:
Her husband died on 18 January 1824. On 25 March 1828, her eldest son succeeded her brother as Baron de Hochepied, the family's Hungarian title (which had been licensed to bear the title in England in 1819).[8]
Death
She died in London in 1832.[3] Her diary is held at the Huntington Library.[3]
^ abcdLisa Forman Cody, ‘Larpent , Anna Margaretta (1758–1832)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 13 April 2017
